Circuit Retreat and Discipleship Day
- Saturday 19 November 2016
- at Emmanuel Church, Bestwood Park
- with Laurence Singlehurst
- Laurence is Director of Cell UK and former Director of Youth with a
Mission, England.
- He is a regular speaker at national events such as
Spring Harvest and cell conferences worldwide.
- His particular passion is
equipping churches to reach their communities, with an emphasis on
network evangelism empowered by cell church structure.
- Laurence is the
author of several books including Loving the Lost, Sowing Reaping Keeping, and The Gospel Message Today.
The Local Preachers & Worship Leaders meeting for the Nottingham East Methodist Circuit took place last night at Sherwood Methodist Church.
Our new probationary minister, Moses Agyam, led the devotions at the start of the meeting.
Moses has responsibilty for three churches within the Nottingham East Circuit: Mapperley, Phoenix Farm and Gedling Road in Carlton.
He described how, as a child of the manse, he acquired a love for the scriptures at an early age through family devotions and how, on moving to Britain, he became involved in South Harrow Methodist Church. At that church he found an inspiring local preacher who, in time, became his mentor as he trained to become a local preacher in his turn. Moses emphasised how love for the scriptures underpins any preaching ministry and warned of the dangers posed by the busyness of our lives and by a sense of over-familiarity with the scriptures themselves, both of which may undermine our ministry. He urged us to let the word of Christ dwell in us richly (Colossians 3 v16).
The business discussed at the meeting included the progress of the two people training as local preachers and a recent training course for Worship Leaders. We also welcomed a student minister, Judith Lincoln, who will be attached to the Arnold Methodist Church.
There is a Circuit discipleship day in November to which all are invited (see next post).
As you can see, I am busy creating a website for Burton Joyce Community Church. This is inevitably a bit experimental at this stage but it will get better as time goes on. At least, I hope it does. So far, I have created four pages: About, Activities, Events and People. This page, the Blog, will show posts (like this one) that relate to things going on in and around the church. It is, in effect, a kind of diary in which we can note down our thoughts on what's going on day by day and week to week.
About
The About page is about the church and what we think we're here for. It gives a brief history, where we are coming from as it were, and sums up our hopes for the future. It will also have a location map (when I get round to it) and directions for finding the church which is conveniently situated in the centre of the village.
Activities
The Activities page gives details of our regular groups and meetings including, of course, the time of Sunday worship - although this keeps changing at the moment so watch that space. If you are confused, we have been experimenting with a 10.15 am start on Sunday morning to make it easier for some of our congregation. This is for three months: September, October and November. It turns out that the earlier start makes it more difficult for others in the congregation and, on reflection, we have decided to revert to a 10.30 starting time from December. So, 1015 at the moment, and until the end of November, then 10.30.
Events
The Events page is intented as a place to give details of less frequent meetings, for example, irregular, seasonal or annual things, if 'things' is the right word. I have organised it in the form of a calendar for the year: Advent, Christmas, etc. etc. This is experimental, it could change and probably will.
People
Ah, here's the thing. Who are these people who call themselves the Burton Joyce Community Church? The People page lists the people who, foolishly or otherwise, have some responsibility within the setup at BJCC. You will see our minister, Malcolm Fife (because there is a photo of him - which I filched from the East Nottingham Circuit website. Acknowledgement, Apologies and Many Thanks). You will also see the members of the leadership team and their various responsibilities. There are contact numbers and email addresses where appropriate. Finally, you will find contact details for both the Circuit Office (Methodist) and the Synod Office (URC) which, it looks to me, are practically round the corner from each other. So they can easily pop in and see each other should the need arise. In theory anyway.
That's it so far and that's enough for now. Thank you for your patience. PC
Stewards meeting
- The leadership Team met at Dinah's: Tuesday 25th October 2016
- Malcolm read the story of Zachaeus from Luke's gospel and commended it to us as being relevant to today's world where many people find themselves outcasts for one reason or another.
- We shared what we knew of the needs of people associated with BJCC and prayed.
- Malcolm mentioned a new initiative from the URC East Midlands Synod to train and equip lay leadership within the churches. There is an impending crisis in numbers of the ordained ministry.
- Christine reported on matters to do with the building: preparations being made for new flood defences at the two lower doors and new carpeting in the entrance hall and in the kitchen. There was some discussion about priorities in the forthcoming building work: a new toilet and coffee making facility to be installed at the back of the church and then a new kitchen installed in what is now the vestry.
- Dinah reported from the Worship Committee: to help in the task of filling preaching appointments for Sunday mornings from March 2017 onwards, we will experiment with a new Fellowship Worship on the first Sunday in each month for three months (March-May) in which stewards and members of the congregation will lead worship incorporating readings, songs and prayers. Phil has offered to explore the possibility of inviting a Nottingham based Gospel Choir to come and give a concert at BJCC.
- Various other matters were discussed.
- A date was set for the next meeting: 27th November at 2pm.
Nottingham East Circuit, The Methodist Church
- Local Preachers and Worship Leaders in the Nottingham East Circuit of the Methodist Church will meet at Sherwood Methodist Church at 7.30pm on Wednesday 26th October 2016.
